Heather says hi. So does all of Columbus, OH. They say it like this: “O H”!!!!
Now you say: “I O!!!!” (see? The “hi” is RIGHT in the middle!)
That really scared the Hell out of us the first time it happened to us, but now we know to yell back joyously. You know, so they don’t know we’re OUTSIDERS.
One of the Lovely people we always say hi to when we’re in town is Ziggy. He’s yappy, but still Lovable. Here Ziggy gives critical admiration to Heather’s new dress. (at the Wandering Buckeye in Columbus, OH) 
Yay! A marquee with our names on it! Whee!
When we got to the Irving Theatre in Indianapolis, IN we walked in to find our old friends Ember Swift and Kelly Zullo in the depths of sound check. I’m still coming to grips with the camera in my phone, so let it be known that Ember Swift hasn’t really become ghost-white since we last saw her! It was a LOT of fun to watch Kelly-as-percussionist. She brings a whole different joy to beating on skins than she does while beating on strings. Soundcheck over, musicians fed and watered… it’s all over but the waiting. Well, and the playing and the rocking and the stuff and the things. Kelly remarked that it looks like our instruments were lined up to pray. The owner of the Irving Theatre flips the switch which sets this monster to nodding and then turns to me and says “everyone needs a two-headed yes man”. Yup. I’m gonna like it here.
Heather and I have been suffering from a little bit of geographical confusion and actually having people yell state names at us probably doesn’t hurt. We’ve been doing a lot of play and THEN drive, rather than drive THAN play. Well – actually we’ve been doing a lot of drive then play then drive, which is even worse. For example, Tuesday we started in Baltimore. We played in New York. But we slept in PA. The next day we got up in eastern Pennsylvania, played in York, but slept in Baltimore. And this morning we woke up in Columbus, OH, we’ll play in Indianapolis, IN and will sleep in Findlay, OH. The next day we wake up in Findlay and play in Findlay, but we’ll sleep in Pittsburgh and the next day we’ll play in Takoma Park, only to sleep once again in our beds in Baltimore.
Whirlwind indeed.
Last night we hit an open mic that we’d last gone to in April 2009 – it has a nice big stage, pretty decent sound and a really friendly crowd. We couldn’t stay out TOO late as we were due at our friend’s place by midnight (and we still didn’t quite make it due to a missing bridge in the middle of our route) but we had a good time playing with a mostly cover-oriented crowd. We sold a CD, reacquainted ourselves with some friends, got a free shot of Patron Café XO whatever-it’s-called and went back to the house that our friend Matt is re-building into a hostel.
We were all too glad to be bed-testers! Though the sentence “thank you guys for testing it out before I open it up to normal people” was sort of weird.
Still – it was the first cold snap of the season. The sunset was beautiful over Ohio and the flood of biting air that swept in after the sun abandoned us was absolutely delicious. I wrapped myself in a comforter with a heat register none too far from my toes and was dead to the world almost instantly.
If only it was ALWAYS that easy – but frankly, I’m probably not half so interesting when I’m fully-rested.
